This is Chet’s first piece as a FanGraphs contributor. He believes data is the most compelling storyteller and loves using analytics to attempt to demystify the game of baseball. He previously covered the Colorado Rockies for Purple Row. A graduate of Georgia Tech, he had the opportunity to participate in Danny Hall’s walk-on tryout in 2003, though he apparently failed to blow the legendary coach away with his 76 mph fastball. Chet lives in Lakewood, Colorado with his wife and two children, all of whom tolerate way too much baseball talk at the dinner table.

Trevor Williams headed into spring training at a pivotal moment in his career. Following two solid seasons of work in the Pirates’ rotation, he experienced a somewhat delayed sophomore slump in 2019. His performance declined significantly. He finished the season with an ERA of 5.38 and a FIP of 5.12 both more than a run higher than the average from the previous two seasons. His campaign to bounce back in 2020 never took off and he ended up on the wrong side of the small sample coin flip, ending the year with a 6.30 FIP and -0.4 WAR, career lows. He was designated for assignment in November.

Fresh off trading their former ace, Yu Darvish, the Chicago Cubs scooped Williams up on a low-risk, one-year deal for $2.5 million. From the Cubs’ point of view, the upside is clear. While Williams has had an awful go of it recently, he is only 28 years old and was once a capable fixture in a major league rotation. Williams (in the parlance of our times) shoved throughout spring training and earned himself the position as No. 4 starter in the Cubs’ rotation, but the question remains as to whether or not he can perform as he once did in 2017 and ’18.

Let’s rewind the tape a bit. Williams had a brief cup of coffee (one start and 12.2 total innings) in 2016 before starting the ’17 season in Pittsburgh’s bullpen. In the season lead-up, our own Eric Longenhagen had this to say of Williams:

“A lead-armed sinkerballer who dominated the International League with a low-90s fastball/sinker combo that he’d run up to 94, Williams made too many mistakes in the zone with that fastball and below-average changeup in his few big-league innings. He has an above-average slider and that pitch, down and in, is his best weapon against lefties. The command is going to need to come here if Williams is going to be more than a fifth- or sixth-starter type of arm.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Prospect writers Kevin Goldstein and Eric Longenhagen will sometimes have enough player notes to compile a scouting post. This is one of those dispatches, a collection of thoughts after another weekend of college baseball, a prospect trade, and minor league co-op action in Arizona. Remember, prospect rankings can be found on The Board.

Kevin’s Notes

Waldy Arias, 3B, Campbell: 3-for-9, 3 BB, K, 2 SB, 2 HBP

If you are here for hardcore draft info, skip to the next paragraph. If you want to have fun for a minute, stick around. Arias is a little junior third baseman at a mid-major program who is slugging .290. Nobody is going to print a magnet with his name on it come July. My question is why does he have so many enemies? With two more hit by pitches over the weekend, Arias has now been hit 16 times in 21 games. That’s nearly once every six plate appearances, which was his exact rate last year, when he got hit 12 times in 15 games. Arias is a pesky slap hitter who crowds the dish. His high front elbow hangs out over the plate and the overall setup reminds me a bit of a mini-Carlos Quentin, who took a fair number of pitches to the body in his career. With access to some of the video and data tools pro teams have, I was able to click a few buttons and watch all 16 HBP. Here are the results:

1. Curveball: Foot
2. Slider: Leg
3. Fastball: Thigh
4. Fastball: Thigh
5. Slider: Foot
6. Fastball: Thigh
7. Fastball: Elbow
8. Fastball: Elbow
9. Slider: Head
10. Fastball: Elbow
11. Changeup: Shoulder
12. Fastball: Back
13. Slider: Elbow
14. Fastball: Elbow
15. Changeup: Hand
16. Slider: Shoulder

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This is Matthew’s first post as a FanGraphs contributor. Matthew is a staff writer and podcast host at Lookout Landing, where he ponders great existential questions like, “Why would anyone be a Seattle Mariners fan?” and, “What dark curse did the Mariners conjure to make Mark Canha such an annoyance in their life?” He has written about the lack of Black players in Major League Baseball, recorded parody songs about the Astros’ banging scheme, and interviewed several minor leaguers. In addition to his current role at Lookout Landing, Matthew was previously a writer for Baseball Prospectus and a marginally successful open mic comedian. After a public school and Subaru childhood, Matthew attended the University of San Diego before bravely becoming the first FanGraphs writer to ever live in Seattle.

The first full week of the 2021 season is upon us. To avoid getting trampled in the avalanche of games, let’s focus in on the ones with the juiciest matchups, funniest storylines, and richest histories of batter vs. pitcher ownage. Here are the best pitching matchups in the week’s early going.

Monday, April 5, 7 PM ET: Jacob deGrom vs. Matt Moore

A team’s first game of the season almost always pairs their best starter versus the top of the other team’s rotation. But with a COVID-19 postponement pushing the Mets’ opener back, they get to unleash Jacob deGrom’s fury against a Philadelphia reclamation project. This NL East showdown sets the game’s most dominant pitcher against a guy who hasn’t pitched stateside in two years.

Unable to convince an MLB team to give him a job after knee surgery ended his 2019 renaissance, Matt Moore signed in Japan with the Fukuoka Soft Bank Hawks. He’s back after posting a 2.65 ERA in Nippon Professional Baseball. That’s certainly impressive, but Moore’s ERA in NPB was still not as good as the 2.38 deGrom ran last season (his 2.26 FIP was somehow better), or his 2.43 before that, and especially not the 1.70 from the year before that. Monday’s tilt is a classic story of an established, hegemonic force meeting a redemptive arc on its final curve. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are two seasons, played 10 years apart:

We’re used to seeing a hitter’s numbers change over the course of that many seasons — sometimes improving in some areas, often declining in others. A table like the one above suggests both an incredible sustaining of abilities and an undying faith in approach. Ironically, that is not the story of Jason Heyward, a player who has been neither consistent in his performance nor trusting of his own approach, having tinkered constantly with his swing mechanics and his goals as a hitter. What the table above omits are the nine seasons between 2010 and 2020, which showed many different versions of Heyward that add up to a hitter far less valuable than the ones that bookend them.

To me, this table is much more interesting than the previous one, providing more information and simultaneously prompting more questions. Heyward started off as a very good hitter, then averaged merely okay performances for the next nine seasons, then suddenly reverted back to his rookie self as a 31-year-old during a pandemic year. The second table is the story I’d like to talk about. (You may be asking, “Then why show us the first table at all?” And to that I say, writing ledes is hard.)

Read the rest of this entry »

As the calendar flips to March, exhibition season has begun (!) in both Arizona and Florida, and yet a few top free agents remain unsigned. Atop the list in terms of projected impact is Jake Odorizzi, who’s had the misfortune of mistiming the market, in part due to an injury-wracked 2020 season. Still, there’s no shortage of teams that the veteran righty, who placed 24th on our Top 50 Free Agents list, could help.

Odorizzi, who turns 31 on March 27, spent the past three seasons with the Twins, putting together a solid campaign in 2018 (4.49 ERA,4.20 FIP, and 2.5 WAR in 164.1 innings), and an All-Star one in ’19 (3.51 ERA, 3.36 FIP, and 4.3 WAR in 159 innings). Last year was a near-total loss, though, as he was limited to 13.2 innings by an intercostal strain and a blister. Prior to that, Odorizzi pitched four years and change with the Rays, that after being traded in blockbusters involving Zack Greinke and Lorenzo Cain (2010) — he was originally a supplemental first-round pick by the Brewers in ’08 — and then James Shields and Wil Myers (2012). In Tampa Bay, he totaled 6.5 WAR from 2014 to ’16 before a bout of gopher trouble (1.88 homers per nine) led to a replacement level season in ’17. That hiccup aside, he’s been very solid and (prior to 2020) rather durable, averaging 30.3 starts per year from 2013 to ’19; an oblique strain in ’15 and hamstring and back woes in ’17 kept him to 27 starts in those seasons. As best I can tell, he’s never missed significant time due to an arm injury.

Odorizzi has gone his entire career without signing a multiyear deal. He won back-to-back arbitration cases against the Rays in 2017 ($4.1 million) and ’18 ($6.3 million), the reward for which was being traded to the Twins just two days after the latter decision was announced. After making $9.3 million in 2019, his best season, he received a $17.8 million qualifying offer from the Twins, which apparently put a drag on his market before he could fully test the waters. Via MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park, Odorizzi received “a lot of interest” from other teams at the time, to the point of exchanging dollar figures, “but the uncertainty generated by the timeframe and the draft considerations ultimately led to his return to Minnesota.” The fact that Odorizzi wouldn’t be be subjected to another qualifying offer the next time he reached free agency, and thus wouldn’t have the millstone of draft compensation attached to his signing, was a factor in his decision.

Alas, his 2020 season didn’t pan out as planned. The intercostal strain landed him on the injured list to start the season, and so he didn’t make his season debut until August 8. In his third outing, on August 21, he was hit in the chest by a batted ball, suffering a contusion and landing on the IL again. Upon returning, a blister problem led to another early hook. Though he was on the roster for the AL Wild Card series against the Astros, he did not pitch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Jarred Kelenic’s beef with the Mariners about alleged service-time manipulation, then preview the 2021 Nationals (25:37) with Jesse Dougherty of The Washington Post and the 2021 Cubs (59:43) with Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic.

Audio intro: Ty Segall, "Manipulator"
Audio interstitial 1: Gary Louris, "D.C. Blues"
Audio interstitial 2: Jason Isbell, "Chicago Promenade"
Audio outro: Van Morrison, "March Winds in February"

Link to USA Today article about Kelenic
Link to Mather video transcript
Link to Craig Goldstein on holding down prospects
Link to Jayson Stark on fixing service-time manipulation
Link to R.J. Anderson on the Bryant grievance
Link to Sahadev on the Darvish trade
Link to Sahadev’s interview with Breslow
Link to Sahadev on Kimbrel
Link to Sahadev on Arrieta
Link to Sahadev on the Cubs’ defense
Link to Alex Chamberlain on Hendricks
Link to Joe Sheehan on hitters in walk years
Link to Jesse on Schwarber getting squatty
Link to Jesse on Kieboom
Link to Jesse on Strasburg
Link to Jesse on Hand
Link to Buzz Saw

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For the second time in his career, Jake Arrieta will join a rebuilding Cubs team. The soon-to-be 35-year-old righty spent four seasons and change with the Cubs from mid-2013 to ’17, joining a team en route to 96 losses and helping Chicago to four straight playoff berths, including a long-awaited championship in 2016. During that stretch he emerged as an ace, throwing a pair of no-hitters and winning a Cy Young. This time around, he’s trying to re-establish himself as a reliable starter via a one-year, $6 million deal, that for a team that’s in the process of blowing up the roster that won the NL Central in the abbreviated 2020 season.

The contract is a big step down from the complex three-year, $75 million deal Arrieta just completed with the Phillies, but then he struggled mightily while trying to live up to that contract. Over the course of those three seasons, he delivered a 4.36 ERA, 4.55 FIP and 3.7 WAR in 352.2 innings, making a full complement of starts only in 2018. The recurrence of a bone spur in his right elbow, which had bothered him the previous year as well, limited him to 24 starts in 2019 before he underwent season-ending surgery in mid-August. While Arrieta could have opted out and sought a larger payday at that juncture, it clearly wasn’t in the cards for him amid the diminishing returns.

Those returns continued to diminish in 2020, as Arrieta made just nine starts before being shut down in mid-September due to a right hamstring strain. His 5.08 ERA was his highest mark since 2012, when he was still trying to find himself with the Orioles; the season was his fifth straight with an ERA that increased from the previous year. He broke a similar streak in the FIP department with a 4.66 mark, down from 4.89 in 2019 and in the vicinity of league average (101 FIP-). Read the rest of this entry »

Joc Pederson has had a strange career so far. In his six-plus seasons in the majors, he’s put together four solid seasons, with WAR totals ranging between 2.7 and 3.5. He’s done it with his bat — his career .230/.336/.470 slash line works out to a 118 wRC+. Because he’s done it on the Dodgers, however, he’s been no more than a platoon bat most years, and so in our heads, he’s mostly just a part-time player.

Over these six years, he’s been roughly as valuable as Mike Moustakas, Whit Merrifield, or AJ Pollock, all of whom have felt like stars at one point or another. He’s only 1 WAR shy of Michael Brantley, 2 WAR shy of new teammate Javier Báez. It’s hard to fight the lingering sense that he’s never gotten a full opportunity, though. At least, he hasn’t until now — on Friday, the Cubs signed Pederson to a one-year, $7 million deal, as first reported by Ken Rosenthal.

After non-tendering Kyle Schwarber, the Cubs lacked outfield depth, and that’s putting it charitably. Phillip Ervin, who they claimed on waivers in December, was a starter by default. By signing there, Pederson will likely be answering the biggest unknown about his game: can Joc hit lefties? Read the rest of this entry »

The last time he was a free agent — and one of the top free agents in the game, at that — Jon Lester struck gold, and so did the Cubs, who won their first championship in 108 years in the second season of his six-year, $155 million deal. This time around, the stakes are much lower. On the heels of a disappointing 2020 campaign, Lester didn’t even crack our Top 50 Free Agents list, but per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, he’s leaving Chicago to take a one-year, $5 million contract with the Nationals.

The exact terms and structure of the deal have not been officially announced, though Passan also reported that it includes a mutual option for 2022 for an as-yet-undisclosed amount. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that the deal actually pays Lester just $2 million in salary for 2021, with $3 million in deferred money due in 2023. The Cubs have already paid Lester a $10 million buyout on his $25 million mutual option for 2021.

Lester, who turned 37 on January 7, is a nine-time postseason participant, six-time All-Star and three-time World Series champion with 193 career wins and 2,397 career strikeouts, but he’s coming off the worst of his 15 major league seasons. Though he went to the post 12 times and ran his streak to making an essentially full complement of starts for the 13th straight year, he was cuffed for a 5.16 ERA (116 ERA-) and a 5.15 FIP while striking out just 15.8% of the hitters he faced, the third-lowest mark of any qualifying pitcher. His drop of nearly six percentage points relative to 2019 was the fourth-largest among the 22 pitchers who qualified for the ERA title in both seasons:

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Every player on the Cubs’ roster should be considered a trade candidate. That much should be clear after their decision to ship Yu Darvish out of town with three years remaining on his contract. He’s far from the only high-profile veteran who could be on the chopping block: Kris Bryant, Javier Báez and Anthony Rizzo are each entering their final years of team control, and Willson Contreras will be a free agent in two years.

We don’t know what will happen with any of those players in the immediate future, but it feels right to say most of them won’t be Cubs by 2022. Chicago seems willing to capitalize on Contreras’ multiple remaining years of control by dangling him in trade talks. Bryant and Báez could be moved in the coming months as well, but both are coming off dreadful seasons at the plate. Even if they aren’t traded, it’s difficult to envision them signing long-term contracts with the team: They’ll still be in their 20s when they finish this season, they play premium defensive positions, and the allure of their MVP-level past selves is likely to put their price higher than Chicago is willing to stomach.

In the case of Rizzo, though, I’m not sure I’d say the same. He will be 32 at season’s end, which means his next contract won’t be nearly as long as those of his teammates. He also plays the lowest non-DH position on the defensive spectrum (albeit very well, winning four Gold Gloves in the last five seasons) and probably doesn’t have the same ceiling that Bryant and Baez do. His price should be more manageable, giving the Cubs an opportunity to offer him an extension that would keep him in Chicago for the duration of his career.

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